Longshensaihui
01 · Historical Records
The Dragon God Fair is a folk custom circulating in Lintan County and the surrounding area of Gansu Province. Most of the 18 Dragon Gods worshipped were Ming-dynasty officials who rendered meritorious service or members of the imperial family; 15 were men and 3 were women. They are: Xu Da, An Shikui, Li Wenzhong, Zhu Liangzu, Hua Rong, Baitu Niangniang (Empress Ma, consort of Zhu Yuanzhang), Fengqi Taitai (a folk goddess), Hu Dahai, Zhao Desheng, Wu Dianzhang, Guo Ying, Pailuxia Niangniang (a consort of Zhu Yuanzhang), Zhang Desheng, Liu Gui, Han Cheng, Cheng Shijiang, Kang Maocai, and Chang Yuchun. After the rebellion was put down, Zhu Yuanzhang issued an edict ordering the soldiers to open wasteland and settle as military colonists; to commemorate their generals and ancestors, the soldiers built temples to worship these enfeoffed "gods," and the practice gradually evolved into the Dragon God Fair. The people of Taozhou have long made the temple fair a vehicle for spiritual sustenance and emotional release; it permeates the blood of every Taozhou person and has been passed down to this day — an accumulation of history, and a refraction and reflection of ancient life.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
In ordinary times, the 18 Dragon Gods are enshrined in different temples; each temple has its own temple fair, with different times and places, generally lasting three days; from the ninth day of the first lunar month to the middle of the ninth lunar month, temple fairs follow one another almost without interruption. As a collective folk activity, every Dragon Boat Festival the people of each temple's locality carry the Dragon God they enshrine to the Taozhou Department (the former county seat, Xincheng Town) to perform rituals such as running the Buddha, welcoming assemblies, offering sheep, burning incense, entering the Dragon God hall, and street parading; the rituals are solemn and the scenes lively. On those occasions, people from Lintan, Zhuoni, Minxian, Kangle, Weiyuan, and other counties come to take part, and the scale is very considerable. In the second year of Hongwu of the Ming dynasty (1369), Zhu Yuanzhang personally fixed the order of merit of his meritorious officials and built a temple to them on Jiming (Long) Mountain northeast of Jiangning Prefecture, enshrining 21 men including Xu Da, Chang Yuchun, Li Wenzhong, Hu Dahai, and Kang Maocai; later Zhu Yuanzhang further enfeoffed the meritorious officials as "gods" and ordered temples to be built throughout the country for their worship. In the twelfth year of Hongwu (1379), the chieftains of the eighteen tribes of Taozhou rebelled, and General-in-Chief Mu Ying and others were ordered to lead the punitive expedition. With historical and social development, the Dragon God Fair is no longer merely a temple fair; it has also become a venue for contemporary material exchange and commercial trade — a large-scale folk activity that integrates multi-ethnic culture, the ancient customs of Jiangnan, and modern civilization.
The roster of eighteen dragon gods
Fifteen male and three female dragon gods are honoured together, from meritorious generals to empresses and a local goddess, ranked by deed rather than blood.
Carrying the dragons to Taozhou at Dragon Boat Festival
At the Dragon Boat Festival each village carries its own god to Taozhou to run the Buddha, hold the welcome rite, offer a sheep, burn incense and parade through the streets.
Running the Buddha and the welcome assembly
Running the Buddha opens the sequence, followed by the welcome assembly, sheep offering, incense burning, entry to the dragon hall and the street parade.
The sheep offering and incense
The welcome rite greets the gods while a sheep and a stick of incense repay their merits; only afterwards do people and gods share the streets.
The dispersed festival calendar
Each god keeps his own temple with its own fair date, spreading gatherings from the ninth day of the first month to mid-autumn of the ninth.
The street parade and the fair
The parade opens the ritual into a crowded street where shrines, musicians and traders mingle, keeping the memory of the early garrison alive.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Dragon God Fair is mainly distributed in Lintan County, Gannan Prefecture, Gansu Province; the participating people include members of 11 ethnic groups — Han, Tibetan, Hui, Tu, and others — from areas such as Zhuoni County, Kangle County of Linxia Prefecture, and Minxian County of Dingxi City, totaling more than 300,000. The Dragon God Fair is a temple-fair activity of relatively large scale, broad geographic coverage, and sizable audience within Gansu Province. It reflects the longing of immigrants of a particular historical period for the Ming-dynasty meritorious officials and their homeland in Jiangnan, embodies people's remembrance of their ancestors' achievements and martial spirit as well as their yearning for a better life of favorable weather and abundant harvests, displays a strong quality of multi-ethnic folk cultural fusion, helps promote ethnic unity, social stability, and local economic development, and is a cultural phenomenon that scholars studying the region's local culture, history, and ethnic composition cannot ignore.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
People of all ethnic groups interact and influence one another at the Dragon God Fair, drawing spiritual nourishment from the traditional folk activity; this is of positive significance for the formation of their views on life, values, and art, for the shaping of the national spirit of perseverance, bravery, kindness, diligence, and unity, and for strengthening the nation's centripetal force and cohesion.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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